poemimage

edge, ledge & hedge

The proportional yet abstract face made of shapes like cactus or flowers,

perhaps a mask in commedia dell’arte,

or a book describing the famous wonders of the world,

thin as a snowflake, balanced on one edge,

tipping to one side diagonally & dampened by droplets

sliding down a stained blurry windowpane

pooling on the ledge, osmosis dampening

cream-coloured paper, flecked & rippled like grief or papyrus –

inscriptions of blue ink (messages of mysterious flavour)

to devour, to decipher (imagine the Hanging Gardens of Babylon)

& heaving your bag of magical tools to your shoulder

building a a sentient tunnel

disappeared beneath the waterfall of a viridian hedge foaming upon the lawn,

blotted by twilight & in the jasmine-scented shade shadowy moss

envelops a stone, upright, sunk into fertile soil &

inscribed with symbols of a fertile flavour –

I’m not being sentimental.

Face: mouth, nose, eye, and (tilted) eyebrow.

I opened the frozen container of orange juice with a can opener. Tasted the frozen orange juice crystals and pulled the razor-sharp, metal lid slowly out of my mouth. Blood poured over my lips. I remembered it was sharp. The guy who told me Picts painted blue symbols all over their bodies said the mouth healed faster than any other part of the body. We were listening to Pink Floyd’s Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict. I said, ‘What is a Pict?’

from my book Meme-Noir (2019)

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June 19, 2022

paper

The thing about working on paper is that one touches-feeling the otherworldly textures of this very world. A reminder of the gift, the circle, one has been given.

One can imagine glimmers of this very world.

As tree roots signal compassion & nurture while snaking out and spiralling into the secret dark soil. As their compassion reverberates like ripples in water.

As a forest of vertical bodies reach skyward. As they etch circular rings in their wooden hearts. As they record circles in orbit around the sun. A living symbol of experience. The experience of this earth.

The thing about working on paper is that one performs mark-making enveloped within sacred heaving breath. As delicate breath-shadows dance beneath sunlight falling like holograms. Like a ballet. The story of archetypal tree as mother. How easy to forget.

As paper absorbs watery emotions, even eyesight – like daylight, starlight or candlelight, received intuitively. Quietly the visceral eclipse. How easy to forget.

One can imagine the tree like an iceberg with secret rooms. Multi-dimensional and unknown. Concealed.

Offering utilitarian circle & body. Of this very world. Like an animal. Like sky. Like an eye. One does not forget. As this very world does not forget. As the animal, sky, and eye do not forget.

Bird Vision, a painting on textured watercolour paper

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June 18, 2022

Harrison Street (3 GIFs)

A summer art project: Sculpture, ‘The Cosmos’ created with youth. You are seeing half of the sculpture. Plaster gauze, rope, acrylic paint. Also balloons. I don’t know why exactly I superimposed this image over a photograph of Harrison Street. Perhaps curvilinear shapes address time. Or the shapes are somehow ancestral. Perhaps such ‘continual vegetal designs’ balance the angularity of buildings while adding human dimensions of roundness and multi-dimensionality. I don’t know. It just seemed the thing to do.

June 17, 2022

It Was a Secret

Giotto painted the stars bleeding out his fingertips.

Caroline Coon did a painting of Christine Keeler

As did Pauline Boty.

I fell into the world without a shaman

Somewhere the world is not yet what it will become.

I rented a tiny apartment next door to the girl in white shorts

whose brother, or maybe step-father, has a hook for a hand.

I wake to the sound of birds.

My mother worked near a famous intersection during the war –

music in the nightclubs vibrated echoes all night long.

Somebody said he remembered her –

in a flat boat gliding through the reeds.

Oak trees cast shadows across divided pools

designed in the curvilinear shapes of a Celtic eagle’s head –

I remember fish in deep water

I didn’t want to fall in –

going home from Eddie’s house.

Eddie spread catsup on white bread and smoothed it with a butter knife.

The architect said it was a secret.

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June 15, 2022

Grey Concrete Sidewalk

I finished four deadlines yesterday I began in February when I finished my 33′ X 5′ painting on paper. Now I can do something about promoting this painting.

final section, Druidica, 2022, Steven McCabe, 33′ X 5′ – mixed media on paper

The amount of work I have done in the last year makes me feel half my age.

I remember when I used to work in schools.

I went for a walk after the rain. Garbage washes over the street in familiar colours.

I see a painting in the tiny art gallery window but when I photograph it clouds appear.

Is this a store security camera monitor? I would splice the discarded ‘evidence’ into an art film.

The Classic Candy Store sponsored a free giveaway of Moirs chocolate at the local (it has been resurrected) theatre in 1927. One day my shadow will vanish forever like a chocolate company.

I used a Sharpie marker in my sketchbook on the subway. The lady in white does not see me. I only see her in the photograph.

I only notice the Celtic manuscript in front of the drugstore parking lot when it begins to fade.

In the elevator at the medical clinic a Taj Mahal-like shape eats away at the cheap paneling.

Now I can do something about promoting this painting.

detail- Druidica, 2022, Steven McCabe, 33′ X 5′ – mixed media on paper

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June 2, 2022

The String Tied To Your Finger

I remembered night.

How the night air felt sacred

like a string tied to my finger

reminding me

to breathe night

in the fragrance of crushed black flowers,

in the fragrance of sacred flowers.

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Image | June 1, 2022

Desire

Byzantium

Silk

Damascus

Oasis

Zero

Echoes

Kerala

Comet

Apparation

Turkish Coffee

Palm Reader

Electric Fan

Papyrus

Flood

Goya

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May 29, 2022

A simple ink drawing

Drawing in my sketchbook on a city bus as the driver aims uphill on a paved surface at normal speed. The bus stops and starts. The sketchbook bounces on my knee. I suspect he is avoiding prehistory, postmodernism, and the now. This explains weaving, dodging, and swerving.